Turkey, the Great Powers, and the Bagdad Railway: A study in imperialism

by Edward Mead Earle

Diplomatic Bargaining Fails to Preserve Peace

It is one of the tragedies of pre-War diplomacy that the negotiations of 1910–1914 failed to preserve peace in the Near East or, at least, to prevent the entry of Turkey into the Great War. But the failure of the treaties between Germany and the Entente Powers regarding the Ottoman Empire can be traced, in general, to the same reasons that contributed to the collapse of all diplomacy in the crisis of 1914. Imperialism, nationalism, militarism—these were the causes of the Great War; these were the causes of Ottoman participation in the Great War.

One obvious defect of the Potsdam Agreement, the Franco-German agreement regarding Anatolian railways, the Anglo-Turkish settlement of 1913, and the Anglo-German convention regarding Mesopotamia, was the fact that they were founded upon the principle of imperial compensations. Each of the Great Powers involved made “sacrifices”—but in return for important considerations. And throughout all of the bargaining the rights of Turkey, a “backward nation,” were completely ignored. As the German ambassador in London wrote: “The real purpose of these treaties was to divide Asia Minor into spheres of interest, although this expression was anxiously avoided, out of regard for the rights of the Sultan.... By virtue of the treaties all Mesopotamia as far as Basra became our sphere of interest, without prejudice to older British rights in the navigation of the Tigris and in the Willcocks irrigation works. Our sphere further included the whole region of the Bagdad and Anatolian Railways. The British economic domain was to include the coasts of the Persian Gulf and the Smyrna-Aidin line; the French, Syria; the Russian, Armenia.”[34]

In the scramble for concessions in Asia Minor, Italy had been overlooked. The proposed extension of the Smyrna-Aidin Railway met with vehement denunciation on the part of patriotic Italians who looked forward to the further development of Italian economic influence in the hinterland of the port of Adalia. The Italian press loudly demanded that energetic action be taken by the Government to secure from Turkey compensatory concessions or, in default of that, to announce to the Sublime Porte that Italy would not return to Turkey the Dodecanese Islands, of which Italy was in temporary occupation under the terms of the Treaty of Lausanne (1912). A formal demand of this character was made by King Victor Emmanuel’s ambassador at Constantinople, but was met with a curt refusal on the part of the Turks to bargain for the return of their own property.[35]

The Young Turks were not unaware of the true character of the agreements they had entered into with the respective European Powers, but they considered themselves impotent to act otherwise at the time. They knew full well that there was grave danger in an extension of British influence in Mesopotamia, French interests in Syria, and Franco-Russian enterprise in northern Anatolia. They had not forgotten the spoliation of their empire by Austria-Hungary and Italy. They were not altogether unsuspicious about the intentions of Germany. But they believed they could never emancipate their country from foreign domination until they had modernized it. They needed foreign capital and foreign technical assistance, and they had to pay the price. In order to throw off the yoke of European imperialism they had to consent temporarily to be victimized by it.[36]

Nationalistic fervor added to the difficulties created by imperialist rivalry. M. André Tardieu, political editor at the time of Le Temps, did not let a single opportunity pass during February and March, 1914, to denounce the French Government for its pro-German policy in the Bagdad Railway question. When M. Cambon, French ambassador at Berlin, was asked whether the Franco-German agreement on Turkish railways would improve the relations between his country and the German Empire, he said: “Official relations, yes, perhaps to some extent, but I do not think that the agreement will affect the great body of public opinion on both sides of the Vosges. It will not, unfortunately, change the tone of the French press towards the Germans.... There is no doubt whatever that the majority, both of Germans and Frenchmen, desire to live at peace; but there is a powerful minority in each country that dreams of nothing but battles and wars, either of conquest or revenge. That is the peril that is always with us; it is like living alongside a barrel of gunpowder which may explode on the slightest provocation.” Herr von Jagow, German Minister of Foreign Affairs, expressed a similar opinion when he said that he was watching for a favorable moment for the publication of the Anglo-German convention of June 15, 1914—“an appropriate moment when the danger of adverse criticism was no longer so acute.”[37] Hatred, suspicion, fear, and other unbridled passions were the stock-in-trade of the Continental press during the months preceding the outbreak of the Great War. Patriotic bombast, not international conciliation, was demanded by the imperialist and nationalist minorities, who exerted only too much influence upon the Governments and made politicians fear lest their efforts at peace be misconstrued as treason!

A situation which was made bad by imperial rivalries and national antagonisms was made intolerable by militarism. During the year 1913–1914, when the diplomatists were working for peace, preparations were being made for war. In the month of August, 1913, while conversations were being held in Berlin to reconcile French and German interests in the Near East, General Joffre was on his way to Russia to confer with the Tsar’s general staff regarding the reorganization of the Russian army. In October of the same year, while tripartite negotiations were being conducted by England, Turkey, and Germany regarding Mesopotamia, General Liman von Sanders was despatched to Constantinople by the Kaiser as head of a German military mission to rebuild the Ottoman army and improve the Ottoman system of defence. Considerations of military strategy were vitiating the efforts of conciliatory diplomacy.

The mission of Liman von Sanders created a crisis at Constantinople. The Russian, French, and British ambassadors protested against such an obvious menace to the interests of the Entente. Russia, in particular, objected to the announced intention of the German general to strengthen the defences of the Straits. All three of the Powers expressed opposition to the further proposal that Field Marshal von Sanders be placed in command of the First Army Corps, with headquarters at Constantinople. The Ottoman Government replied that it meant no offence to England or France, but that it could not allow its military policy to be determined by Russia. It called attention to the fact that the improvement of the navy was in the hands of a British mission and that the reorganization of the gendarmerie was going on under the direction of a French general. German officers were being asked to perform similar services for the army because the great majority of Turkish officers had completed their training in Germany, and the rest, since the days of General von der Goltz Pasha, had been educated and experienced in German methods. To change from German to French or British technique appeared to the Ottoman Minister of War an extremely inadvisable procedure.[38]

Although the storm over Liman von Sanders cleared by February, 1914, it left behind it certain permanent effects. It strengthened German influence at Constantinople, indirectly because of the increased Turkish hostility to Russia and suspicion of France and England, directly because of the presence of hundreds of German staff and regimental officers who used every opportunity to increase German prestige in the army and the civil services. The German ambassador at the Sublime Porte, Baron von Wangenheim, readily capitalized this prestige in the interest of German diplomacy. A formal Turco-German alliance was rapidly passing from the realm of the possible to the realm of the probable.

In the meantime feverish efforts were being made to complete Turkey’s military preparations. In March, 1914, at the request of the Minister of War, a conference was held of representatives of all railways in Asiatic Turkey to discuss the utilization of Ottoman rail communications for mobilization in the event of war. Under the guidance of German and Turkish staff officers a plan was adopted by which the respective railways agreed to merge their services into a unified national system for the transportation of troops. Throughout the spring of 1914 the defences of the Dardanelles were being strengthened, schools were being conducted for junior officers and non-commissioned officers, the General Staff was reorganized, new plans for mobilization were in process of completion. On July 23, 1914, the handiwork of Field Marshal Liman von Sanders Pasha was exhibited in a great national military review. On that occasion Baron von Wangenheim said to the Ottoman Minister of Marine: “Djemal Pasha, just look at the amazing results achieved by German officers in a short time. You have now a Turkish army which can be compared with the best organized armies in the world! All German officers are at one in praising the moral strength of the Turkish soldier, and indeed it has proved itself beyond all expectation. We could claim we have won a great victory if we could call ourselves the ally of a Government which has such an army at its disposal!”[39]

A few days later the Ottoman Empire was admitted to the Triple Alliance—with the consent of Austria, but without even the knowledge of Italy. The die was cast for Turkey’s participation in the War of the Nations![40]